It’s Indigenous Peoples' Day! We urge you — today and all year — to seek out and share books respectfully representing indigenous North American peoples and cultures. For an extensive resource by a cultural insider and a children’s literature scholar, please visit Dr. Debbie Reese’s website American Indians in Children’s Literature (and in particular her “Best Books of the Year” lists) and pick up a copy of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz; adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese.

In January, the American Indian Library Association's American Indian Youth Literature Awards — another source for excellent children's books by and about American Indians — were announced at the ALA Youth Media Awards.

Relevant Horn Book Magazine articles from this past year include:

• In our January/February 2020 issue we shared Traci Sorell and Frané Lessac's acceptance speech from their 2019 Boston Globe–Horn Book honor book award for the picture book We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga. [Note: A sequel, We Are Still Here!: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know, will be published by Charlesbridge in April 2021.]
• Our March/April 2020 issue included a Publishers' Preview Five Questions interview with Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade, author and illustrator respectively of We Are Water Protectors.
• In the May/June 2020 Breaking the Rules Special Issue, author Kevin Noble Maillard, whose book Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal won the 2020 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal, wrote a Rule Breakers short piece titled "I Simply Cannot Draw."
• In May, author/illustrator Julie Flett's book Birdsong was awarded a 2020 Boston Globe–Horn Book honor book award for picture book and her acceptance speech video will appear on our website later this month as part of our first-ever virtual and month-long BGHB celebration (in addition to being reprinted in the upcoming January/February 2021 issue of the Magazine).

Other recommended books reviewed by the Horn Book Magazine this past year include:

• Johnny’s Pheasant by Cheryl Minnema, illustated by Julie Flett (Minnesota) [starred review Jan/Feb20]
• Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, illustrated by Rovina Cai (Levine Querido) [from Sept/Oct20]
• Swift Fox All Along by Rebecca Thomas, illustrated by Maya McKibbin (Annick) [from forthcoming Nov/Dec20]
• Rise of the Halfling King [Tales of the Feathered Serpent] by David Bowles, illustrated by Charlene Bowles (Cinco Puntos) [from forthcoming Nov/Dec20]
• Feathered Serpent and the Five Suns: A Mesoamerican Creation Myth by Duncan Tonatiuh (Abrams) [starred review from forthcoming Nov/Dec20]
• Apple: Skin to the Core by Eric Gansworth (Levine Querido) [from forthcoming Nov/Dec20; this book was also longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Young People]

See our booklists from 2019, 2018, and 2017 for additional titles.

We welcome your suggestions as well.